Anatomy of a Dress

Yes indeed, Nick Flynn acted like a cutesy, pretentious douchebag for the majority of his reading and the audience just lapped it right up (note to self: being cutesy with an audience will earn you a lot of time, a lot social currency, but you are a WAITRESS, you know this already) and the themes of Samsara/enlightenment emerged and reemerged in his work, at which I could quietly snicker: my mentor does it better so nyah nyah nyah. The final piece in the –tragically short, 30 minute — reading was a longish freewheeling poem populated with a bunch of found lines from like, Bruce Springsteen and Walt Whitman? And name-dropped Britney Spears? And ended in some strange sort of confession, a memory of skipping class in grade school, climbing a huge rock and lighting matches which he dropped over the edge, into drifts of dead leaves. Small flash fires. A girl his age wandered up and begged him for her own match, which he traded for a glimpse of her genitals. He told this story in somber guilty overtones (MEA CULPA! MEA CULPA!)

And I thought: lech.

Then I shoved all my tumultuous feelings in a dark closet in the back of my brain and shouldered the door closed, to maintain at least the illusion of cleanly composure in his presence. Presented him with his memoir and his first book of poems, Here I brought you these! all bouncy sweetness. He sized me up. Yes, you. “What was your name again?”
“Uh. Ahem. Farren?”
“Right. Right. Of course! Spelled F-E-R–?”
“F-a-r-r-e-n.”
“Right! Right! Yes. And how are the poems going?”
“Well, wonderful, actually. A couple of publications this winter. I got into Alabama and Purdue, although I’m waiting to hear from–”
He looked up. “Would that be…Tuscaloosa?”
It was my turn. “mmm hmm. Of course!”
“Wow. Well that program is just–Wow! And I LOVE Joel.”
“Me too. And Robin and Peter Streckfus. I’m just really excited about the entire faculty.”
“Yeah! Joel is just–amazing. Wow.”

His inscriptions are saccharine and bordering on fawning: “To Farren — ALL BRIGHTNESS! Nick Flynn Feb ‘09″ Et cetera.

Amazing! He didn’t even remember me! Incredible! All the wasted rage, all the teeth grinding, all the spun wheels and all the plowing into new poems, eyes narrowed in his (clueless, idiot) direction. So much angst wasted on someone who forgot me probably the minute I exited his line of vision.

STORY OF MY LIFE!

Goodbye, Nick Flynn, and thanks.